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Early findings from a longitudinal study currently being conducted by the National Institutes of Health were reported on by 60 Minutes back in December, particularly ramping up the conversation. In that study, 11,000 children (aged nine and ten) across the US are to be followed for ten years. Initial scans from 4,500 children, according an interview between Dr. Gaya Dowling of the NIH and CBS, showed that those who used screens for over seven hours each day had "premature thinning of the cortex"; in addition, children who used screens for over two hours a day performed worse on "thinking and language tests."

The American Academy of Pediatrics has guidelines, most recently updated in 2016, for children's screen time use: children eighteen months and younger shouldn't use screens; children between eighteen and twenty-four months should use screens with parents to watch "high-quality programming"; children between two and five should be limited to two hours per day; and children six and older should be given rules that are deployed consistently. The UK's Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, however, takes a different approach in its first release of screen-related guidelines, citing lack of evidence for the need for time-based limitations. Instead, the RCPCH suggests parents think critically about screen use: monitoring snacking during screen time, controlling content and duration on a family-basis, engaging in non-screen family-time, and preventing screen use right before bed.

A new study published in Nature Human Behaviorseems to support this sort of guidance, indicating that teen screen use is not as harmful as often claimed: "The association we find between digital technology use and adolescent well-being is negative but small, explaining at most 0.4% of the variation in well-being. Taking the broader context of the data into account suggests that these effects are too small to warrant policy change." The study, instead, suggests focusing on other things that have a strong relationship with health: drug use, experiencing bullying, and regular meals, for example.

So, as parents decide how to dole out new kids-edition tablets and Kindles, it may be more prudent to think about how this sort of screen use will contribute to their development, and how it will detract from other key components of healthy growth. E-books aren't necessarily worse for kids than physical books.